Newton-in-Makerfield – or Newton-le-Willows as it is known today – was described as a ‘little, poor market [town]’ in the 1530s, and it was still ‘hardly more than a village’ a century later. VCH Lancs. iv. 132; C.G. Bayne, ‘The first House of Commons of Queen Elizabeth’, EHR xxiii. 679. Situated within Winwick parish, about half way between Liverpool and Manchester, it lay on the main road between Warrington and Wigan and was the administrative centre for the fee or barony of Makerfield. VCH Lancs. iv. 132. According to the 1664 hearth tax returns, Newton contained 89 households, suggesting a population of less than 500. E179/250/11. The town had received charters for holding a market in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, but had never been incorporated. It was governed through a court leet and court baron presided over by the bailiff of the manor and the steward of the borough respectively, both of whom were appointed by the lord of the manor. J.H. Lane, Newton-in-Makerfield (Newton-le-Willows, 1914), i. 9, 22; ii. 33; VCH Lancs. iv. 132.
Newton had first sent Members to Parliament in 1559, having been granted the franchise as a result of pressure from the duchy of Lancaster. R.C.L. Sgroi, ‘The electoral patronage of the duchy of Lancaster, 1604-28’, PH xxvi. 311. Yet despite the duchy’s role in securing Newton’s enfranchisement it very rapidly lost its electoral influence over the borough. HP Commons 1604-29. With Newton being in effect a proprietory borough it was the lords of the manor who, from the 1580s, exercised the ‘nomination, election and appointment’ of MPs. Bayne, ‘First House of Commons’, 679-80. The general election of 1604 may have been the last time that the duchy exerted any appreciable influence upon Newton’s choice of MPs. Sgroi, ‘Electoral patronage’, 314. Between 1604 and 1628 the borough’s electoral patrons were members of the family that owned the manor – the Fleetwoods of Penwortham, Lancashire. HP Commons 1604-29. The franchise was vested in the freemen, who, according to one authority, consisted of those persons possessing freehold estates in the borough worth £2 or more a year, ‘of which there were about 60 who claimed to vote’. Baines, Lancs. iv. 391. The returning officers were the bailiff and steward. C219/43/2/16; Lane, Newton-in-Makerfield i. 22.
Although the Fleetwoods remained lords of the manor of Newton until about 1660, by 1640 they had apparently been usurped as the borough’s main electoral patrons by the Legh family of Lyme, in Cheshire, who were possessed of a considerable estate in and around the barony of Makerfield. PROB11/226, f. 381; DL7/28/32; DL7/29/16; Newton, House of Lyme, 165. On 30 March 1640, in the elections to the Short Parliament, the borough returned two carpetbaggers – the Welsh courtier Sir Richard Wynn and Archbishop William Laud’s ‘servant’ William Sherman. Among the 20 or so signatories to the indenture was Peter Legh – nephew of the head of the family Francis Legh – who would himself represent the borough in the Long Parliament. C219/42/2/143. Evidently Newton and the Leghs were at this time amenable to accommodating court-sponsored candidates, although it is likely that Laud and whoever recommended Wynn required the services of a local patronage-broker – and that person may well have been Lancashire’s lord lieutenant James Stanley†, Lord Strange (the future 7th earl of Derby), whose family seat at Knowsley lay a little to the west of Newton and whose approbation apparently weighed much with the borough’s voters and the Leghs (see below).
Sir Richard Wynn was also returned for Bodmin and Andover, and when he opted to sit for the latter constituency the Commons ordered that writs be issued for new elections at Bodmin and Newton. CJ ii. 3b. At some point before 4 May, the freemen of Newton apparently returned another carpetbagger, Guilford Slyngesby, a client of Laud’s court ally the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†). No indenture has survived for this election, but there is strong evidence for identifying Slyngesby as Wynn’s replacement at Newton. Infra, ‘Guilford Slyngesby’.
In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, the borough returned yet another carpetbagger, the courtier Sir Roger Palmer, with Peter Legh taking the junior place. The indenture has not survived. After serving less than 18 months as a Parliament-man, however, Legh was killed from a wound received fighting a duel, and on 4 February 1642 the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for a new election at Newton to replace him. CJ ii. 414a.
Interest in the vacant seat for Newton was strong. By 11 February, the Cheshire grandee Sir George Booth had written to Francis Legh, requesting his support for the return of his grandson George Boothe*. JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 11: G. Boothe to F. Legh, 11 Feb. 1642. And on 12 February, Richard Holland* wrote to Legh, recommending his fellow Lancashire gentleman John Holcrofte*. JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 12: Holland to Legh, 18 Feb. 1642. At least one other local candidate, a son of Sir Gilbert Gerard (not to be confused with the Middlesex MP), had entered the lists by 23 March, when William Ashhurst* of nearby Ashurst wrote to Legh of his own progress in securing the seat. Ashhurst declared that he had become
engaged to some of the freeholders of that borough to stand for the place, and my Lady Strange [the wife of Lord Strange] had freely offered me her assistance, which I have thankfully accepted of. The next morning after was Mr Booth with some of the freeholders to desire their votes for him and afterwards with my Lady Strange, but perceiving that they had pitched upon me, and he not willing to stand without them, sends his man to me with a kind letter requesting that I would do him the favour absolutely to resolve whether I would stand or no, and if I should waive it then to give him timely notice thereof, in which case many were resolved to be for him – which request I could not deny to so deserving a gentleman and of that quality, but did resolve ... that I purposed (God willing) to stand.
It was only after Ashhurst had become thus engaged for the place that he had heard from Gerard that his son intended to stand and that Sir Richard Fleetwood, lord of the manor of Newton, would support him. Ashhurst referred to Fleetwood as
chief amongst the freeholders of inheritance within that borough, in whom (some said) the right of election is only vested, yet (I am informed) that many of them [the freemen] are resolved to oppose Sir Richard Fleetwood in the election for that he hath (as they say) much invaded the privileges herein.
Although Ashhurst was eager to stand, he insisted that he would not ‘violently pursue it (which I dare say I have not done) [and] that, if I might not suffer in my reputation, I should be as glad that Mr Gerard carried it as myself’. He suggested to Legh that Lady Strange be moved to propose to him (Ashhurst) the declining of the place – for having accepted her favour he would not be seen to reject it – that an agreement be reached between the freemen and Fleetwood about the rights of election, and that Booth’s honour be satisfied. Ashhurst did not think it appropriate to act in this matter himself, but if these issues could be resolved before the election then he was willing to stand aside
But in all these I was so deeply engaged at the first that if any of them fail I must make use and thankfully accept of all the noble favours and promises of my friends in this business, and of yours as the chief amongst them, being desirous ... to be chosen both by you, burgesses and inhabitants or not at all. JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 11: Ashhurst to Legh, 23 Mar. 1642.
That Lord and Lady Strange should exercise some influence over the freemen is hardly surprising given the Stanleys’ eminent status and the borough’s proximity to Knowsley. More curious is the apparent degree of animosity among some of the freemen towards the lord of the manor Sir Richard Fleetwood. It would appear that a dispute had emerged in Newton over who had the right to vote, with Fleetwood apparently supporting the claim of the ‘burgesses’ or ‘freeholders of inheritance’ and the Leghs and Ashhurst favouring a more open franchise that embraced all the inhabitants. Fleetwood was at some considerable disadvantage to the Leghs in this dispute, for besides his allegedly heavy-handed assertion of his manorial privileges, his principal residence lay at even further remove (Staffordshire) than theirs did and he was reputed a Catholic. CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 435. In the event, Ashhurst was returned for Newton, probably at some point in late March or April, but again the indenture is no longer extant.
The civil war divided Newton’s MPs, with Ashhurst emerging as a leading figure in the war party at Westminster and Palmer joining the king at Oxford. On 22 January 1644, the Commons duly disabled Palmer from sitting and, on 30 December 1645, ordered that a writ be issued for electing an MP for Newton in his place. CJ iii. 374a; iv. 392a. Competition for the vacant seat at Newton was again strong. On this occasion, the two main contenders were apparently the Lancashire Presbyterians and army officers Peter Brooke* and Richard Holland. As the owner of a house at Great Sankey, about five miles south of Newton, Brooke was probably no stranger to the freemen. He was also on good terms with the Leghs and a friend of the rector of Winwick – and Lancashire’s most prominent Presbyterian divine – Charles Herle. Infra, ‘Peter Brooke’. Holland, on the other hand, owned little or no land in the immediate vicinity of the borough. Nevertheless, he was no mere carpetbagger, for his father had been described as a resident of Winwick, and Holland himself was on sufficiently friendly terms with the Leghs to have recommended Holcrofte for the borough in the 1642 by-election. Infra, ‘Richard Holland’.
On election day, 26 March 1646, the freemen were divided, with one group returning Holland and another returning Brooke. C219/43/2/15, 16. There is no record of this double return in the Journal, but the man who emerged the victor was Brooke. What may have clinched the result for him was the support he received from the young heir to Francis and Peter Legh, Richard Legh*. Although only 14 at the time of the election, Richard appears to have signed the indenture returning Brooke. Also among the 17 signatories to the indenture were Newton’s bailiff and steward. C219/43/2/16. The indenture returning Holland was signed by about ten of the freemen – possibly the leaders of an interest in the borough that aligned with Sir Richard Fleetwood against the Leghs. C219/43/2/15. There is certainly no evidence that the contest turned on significant political differences between the two candidates. Both seem to have favoured a strong Presbyterian ministry and both would fall out, to varying degrees, with the Rump. Infra, ‘Peter Brooke’; ‘Richard Holland’.
Ashhurst retained his seat at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, but withdrew from the House soon afterwards in protest at the army’s proceedings. Infra, ‘William Ashhurst’. Brooke was secluded, but on 23 July 1649, having evidently taken the dissent to the 5 December 1648 vote – that the king’s answer to the Newport propositions were an acceptable basis for settlement – he was allowed to take his seat in the Rump. Infra, ‘Peter Brooke’. However, he received only one committee appointment in the Rump, suggesting that he was not comfortable with the newly-established commonwealth.
Disenfranchised under the Instrument of Government of 1653, Newton regained its seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659, which saw the return of the Cheshire grandee William Brereton (the future 3rd Baron Brereton of Laghlin [I]) and Richard Legh’s cousin, Piers Legh. Richard himself was returned for Cheshire. Again, there is no surviving indenture. Both of Newton’s MPs were returned on the Legh interest, which was in the process of becoming virtually unassailable with Richard Legh’s purchase from the Fleetwoods during the period 1655-60 of the manor of Newton, Newton Hall and more property in the barony of Makerfield. Infra, ‘Richard Legh’. The borough was effectively disenfranchised again with the restoration of the Rump in May 1659, for not only did Brooke not take his seat but he played a leading part in (the now) Sir George Boothe’s Presbyterian-royalist rising in the north-west that summer. Brereton requested the Leghs’ approval to sit for Newton again in the 1660 Convention, but, in the event, the borough returned Richard Legh and one of his kinsmen. JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Richard Legh, folder 15: T. Legh to Legh, 1 Mar. 1660; HP Commons 1660-90.
